Astral Ascent, a 2D platformer rogue-lite on PC and consoles with four worlds to escape, if you can beat the Zodiacs, 12 mighty bosses!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
1.5 Update - Reminiscing Mirror, Destiny Level 100 and more!
8 months ago
– Mon, May 13, 2024 at 10:11:43 AM
Hello everyone!
Version 1.5 is out now on Steam! This time again we did not do a simultaneous release on console because we wanted to keep iterating based on our Beta Public feedback, this update adds a variety of small changes and bug fixes. We hope you will enjoy it!
We have added a new feature in the Garden, next to Papa Yalee, the Reminiscing Mirror!
You can interact with it to see all the Pixel-Art Cinematics, there is 38 cinematics in the 1.5 Update and it will go up to 40 in the 1.6 Yamat DLC.
This should allow you to see what you still have to unlock, in particular for endings and you can see again these cinematics when you want!
A new cinematic has been added in 1.5 linked to another important change.
Destiny Level 100 and Resilience Mode
Destiny Level maximum used to be 54, with a secret hidden at this level.
We were surprised and amazed by the quantity of players who cleared the Destiny Level 54 which is incredibly hard! We wanted to add more content for these players, we initially wanted to add a Destiny Level 100 with only Stats increase (more life and damage on enemies) in the 1.4 Update but we listened to feedback and decided to postpone it to 1.5 and make it a bigger than initially planned based on the initial reception of it.
We re-balanced the elements that seemed too punishing in Destiny Level 54 to make it less frustrating, for example adding a cooldown when getting hit and losing max hp/mana/quartz. The ghosts spawning have a delay before attacking and the armor on enemies is less frequent.
This makes Destiny Level 54 easier so you have more chance to get to see what's next!
For 1.5 version we decided to create a new column of 5 elements in the Path of Destiny.
This new column can only be activated if you did beat Destiny Level 54 first.
In a similar way of the 6 first Destiny Levels, the 5 last one need to be beaten one by one to get to progress.
Destiny Level 60
The first element is Ophiuchus Giant Swords falling on players during most rooms.
Destiny Level 70
The second element is more Elites which also gives more Stars to also give a bit more power.
Destiny Level 80
The third element is fighting 2 Star Guardians at once, Star Guardians are a place that experienced players defeat easily so it makes the fight more complicated.
You have 2 extra Gambits loots when defeating Star Guardians at this Destiny Level.
Destiny Level 90
The fourth element is even harder as it requires you to fight 2 Zodiacs at once with their improved fighting skills from Destiny Level 6.
You have 2 extra Auras loots when defeating Zodiacs at this Destiny Level.
Destiny Level 100
Finally the last element is making the Ophiuchus fight harder for a final climax. Ophiuchus summons 2 Shadow Clones in Phase 1 instead of 1 ( 1 by 1 ) and he summons 4 Shadow Clones in Phase 2 instead of 2 (2 by 2). Ophiuchus also summons real Zodiacs you have to kill instead of Zodiacs only doing 1 attack. Finally Ophiuchus also gets Elite Aspects that only happen during Shadow Clones and Zodiacs attacks to avoid impossible to dodge attacks during Ophiuchus patterns.
Glory is the main reward of finishing Destiny Level 100 as we already gave a big extra reward at Destiny Level 54 but we still added an extra small ending to express our gratitude to players going this far in the game.
Each Destiny Level also adds damage and life to enemies and Zodiacs but the life added is not too high to avoid enemies becoming too tanky.
Resilience Mode
We are also adding an option for players wanting to experiment the game but having a hard time doing it. The Resilience Mode is similar to Hades God Mode, if you activate it, the more you die the more resilient you become so it adapts to you so you can keep going in the game if you are stuck!
Banning Spells
You can now ban spells, 3 per hero and 5 common spells so if you really do not like playing with some spells you can make sure you do not find them again in your runs!
Other smaller changes
Burn Stacks can now go up to more than 10 stacks, if you had more than 10 stacks on an enemy you would lost the extra stacks while now they are kept. Combustions are also triggered faster than before when reaching 10 stacks.
A Yalee in Echoes Island appears once you beat Destiny Level 6 once (like Yalee in Telluric Ruins) and allows you to reset one time the Echoes choice.
Icons of Echoes you get from Void Catalyst and Telescope appear above player in the first room so you don't miss them.
New icons showing spells and gambits elemental affinities. This change is part of more changes coming to the game to better understand the loots affinities and effects. You do not need to open the spells anymore to see their affinity, we know that for gambits the affinities are more obvious but we also wanted to keep a consistency among loots.
Equipping an Aura on the same Aura will increase its quality if Aura can be improved. 2 Common Auras become a Rare Aura and 2 Rares Auras become a Mythic Aura.
Yamat is coming!
The next update will be 5th character, Yamat DLC and we will communicate more about it when possible, target is Summer 2024 but until then you can see her animated portrait!
Have an excellent day everyone!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Physical Editions Update
9 months ago
– Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 12:56:14 AM
Hello everyone,
We are contacting you today to give news related to the Physical editions and Physical rewards from the Kickstarter campaign!
1 week left to answer the survey and update credit cards
Limited Run Games handling the Physical editions need a list of how many items to create for each rewards (Physical editions, pin's, Zodiac Cards, etc.) and we need to give them that by the end of the month in order to guarantee the right number of physical items.
We still have 541not answered surveys, if you did do not have a physical reward you do not need to, but if you backed a physical item we need your answer to get your shipping address and to calculate the shipping fees, you can find the survey here :
You can still use this survey to update your shipping address if it changes until we lock the adresses before the final shipping.
We also have 46 failed credit cards, we will try to charge again early next week but if you backed physical editions, Limited Run Games cannot guarantee they will have enough stock for Kickstarter exclusive elements and for Kickstarter exclusive Physical editions.
Shipping Dates Update
Limited Run Games now have a window for the pre-order of the game on their side, it should be opening this Summer, once they get their final list of physical editions they will have everything printed and shipped right after.
We are sorry about the physical editions taking longer than expected but we have full trust in our partners to deliver great versions!
Wishing you a great week and let us know if you have questions related to that,
-The Hibernian Workshop Team
1.4 Update - The Arsenal Update!
9 months ago
– Mon, Apr 08, 2024 at 03:03:57 PM
Hello everyone!
We are very happy to announce that the 1.4 version is out now on Steam! This time we could not do a simultaneous release on console as we had to release the update as soon as possible in order to be able to participate to a Steam festival in May but we will do our best to release it as soon as we can later this month!
You can check below our first trailer since 1.0 release to showcase the new changes!
Each hero received 2 new weapons for a total of 12 weapons to play with!
Our goal was to provide more playstyles with the heroes so you should find a weapon you enjoy for your favorite hero!
You unlock the Arsenal by meeting at least once with the Master. And you unlock new weapon by defeating the Master at Destiny Level 2 and 4 with each hero. While doing so you can unlock passives for your base weapons!
36 Weapon Passives
Each weapon, including the base weapon, has 3 passives attached, each passive has to be unlocked through a small quest during your runs. Some quests are easy and some are hard but you can complete them at any Destiny Level.
Once unlocked you can directly use the passive during your run at the next Arsenal because you have one Arsenal in each intro room and before the Master if you want to change your playstyle during your run.
Showing below one passive per weapon so 1/3 of the passives -
As you can see, the passives are very different from each others giving access to even more playstyles variations and they are meant to be more useful in certain situations than others, up to you to pick what you prefer!
What is next?
The Arsenal was a massive update we really wanted to do to give more variety to the gameplay, we wish to keep adding more polish to the game when possible as we had to focus on the new content for this update. We also want to start working on Yamat, the 5th playable character update as soon as possible.
We will hope you will have fun with this update and thanks for supporting us!
The Physical editions are nearly ready, it took more time than expected but we will soon have delivered everything to Limited Run Games!
Have an excellent week,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
1.3 Update - Affinity System, QoL and Arsenal preview!
10 months ago
– Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 05:09:45 AM
Hello everyone!
We just released the 1.3 version on PC and Switch (EU/NA) and in 1-2 weeks for Playstation and Switch Asia. This new version is focused on elements often requested by the community.
The most frequent request and complaint about the game since its 1.0 release was the lack of Synergy of your build during your run. Wanting to go in a direction and loots would go in another direction gave the feeling of being unlucky during the runs.
We have created a new system called the Affinity System that increases synergies of the loots depending of your current build so you are more likely to make a fully coherent build at the end of your run. Keep in mind that keeping some flexibility on the loots you find is still important, if you find something very powerful, you might still want to re-orient your build during your run!
We have also made Auras rarities stand out more on your interface.
Destiny Fragments
You will now be able to get up to 3 Destiny Fragments at once per Zodiac victory!
The way it currently works in 1.2 is this :
You get 1 Destiny Fragment per Zodiac per Destiny Level (up to 54) and the Master gives 3 fragments per level, you can at best get 7 fragments in a run.
If you defeat a Zodiac at a high Destiny Level, you will only get 1 Destiny Fragment and it will increase by 1 the Destiny Level you need to get a new fragment of this Zodiac.
Ex : if you have all fragments of Taurus at Destiny Level 10, if you beat him at Destiny Level 20 you will get his 11th fragment, and you will need to beat him at Destiny Level 12 or more to get one new fragment.
This system is slow, does not reward players wanting to take more risks in higher Destiny Levels and it exhausts the Master Destiny Fragments much faster than the Zodiacs fragments, this is how the 1.3 system works :
You get from 1 to 3 destiny Fragments per Zodiacs depending on the difference between your current Destiny Level and the number of Destiny Fragments already collected from the Zodiacs.
Ex : if you have all fragments of Taurus at Destiny level 10, if you beat him at Destiny Level 13 you will get 3 fragments. Then you will need to beat him at Destiny Level 14 or more to get new Destiny Fragments.
The Master still gives 3 Destiny Fragment per Destiny Level and you cannot collect several ranks at once so your maximum Destiny Fragments per run is now 15 and the Master and Zodiacs fragments would exhaust at the same time if you win all your Destiny Levels runs.
Improved Descriptions
We have made descriptions for Effects, Player Statuses and Elite Aspects much clearer adding details for how they work, durations, chances to add stacks in order to give you a clearer idea of what to expect from each of these elements.
Some Astral Auras also used Common Spells without giving informations on them, they now have the descriptions added as hints.
Permanent spell icon
We added an option to make next spell icon always visible above your head. We know this option can help players having an hard time checking the icon during action.
Astral Dragons
Small Astral Dragon now gives 3 Auras to choose from instead of 2 so you have more choices to start your build during the run.
We have also replaced the Void Catalyst element that increased strength when killing enemies without being hit by Barbecue's Grace giving the Echo of Barbecue to reroll the Auras you do not want with new Auras of same rarity. This gives even more choices to build during your runs.
Darker Background Option
In order to give more options related to readibility, we added an option to make everything in background darker so enemies and players stand out much more.
Ultimate Challenge
We sponsored Gellot ,a great content creator that performs very hard challenges on games, to do all Zodiacs no-hit at Destiny Level 6 which sounds ridicously hard but that wasn't even close to the challenge he did, making a no-hit on all Zodiacs at Destiny Level 54, it sounds really impossible but he made it!
Send him some love in the comments of the video for the incredible performance this is!
Arsenal Update Preview
The Arsenal will be the next update, the 1.4, it will give each Hero 2 new weapons and 3 passives modifying gameplay of each hero, including for their base weapons.
We announced Ayla will have a Katana giving her more impactful attacks with a longer range.
Kiran will have a Double Falchions for large range attacks at a slower pace but keeping high mobility.
Octave will have a Rocket Launcher to kill enemies from far but without auto-targeting, you will need to position correctly to hit your enemies, a bit similar to the one from Hades.
Below, Octave has a passive creating grenades on the third Basic Attack.
Calie will have Spears, all Signature Spells will keep working the same so the spears will create gems when attacking.
And today we announce the second weapon of Octave : the Gunblade! Giving him the ability to fight at a closer range.
We are targetting for this update to release by the end of April 2024.
Backerkit and Physical Rewards
We are getting closer of the final shipment for Physical rewards, we have closed the possibility of changing your rewards and we will collect shipping costs in the coming weeks.
We reached 80% of Survey answer, make sure you answered it if you have a physical rewards to make sure your shipping address is up to date and that Limited Run Games will be shipping to the right place!
We will do our best to keep manually changing the address until the last minute but answering the survey just makes things much easier!
Have an excellent day
-The Hibernian Workshop
1.2 Update - PvP Arena, new Spells and more!
11 months ago
– Mon, Feb 12, 2024 at 08:22:47 AM
We have added 5 new spells per Hero, 2 of them are directly unlocked and you need to buy 3 of them at the Merchant. If you already have a rarer spells you won't need to unlock them with experience at the end of runs
We received a lot of feedback saying you would like to see more spells about making the enemies move. More spells making something else than pure damage. We have tried to include that as much as possible in our new spells design and we are really happy about these new spells!
PvP Arena
The PvP Arena is placed in Andromeda's Bar. It is accessible only in local co-op during runs and you can make as many duels as you want. We had so much fun testing this new feature, we know it won't be used by everyone as it requires playing in co-op but during co-op runs it adds a lot of fun!
When you start the duel it will make you full life and full mana and it will restore the amount you had before the duel when getting out.
During the duel both players get mana point with time so you can focus on launching spells more than attacking with Basic Attacks to restore mana. We also added some buff trees spawning sometimes to spice things up. We also removed the Echoes and Zodiac Summon during the duels, it was way too chaotic when it was possible.
The player winning the Duel will get a little crown symbol above their avatar as a reward for the run but it can change back to the other player if they win another duel.
We received a lot of questions relative to online PvP but we are not going for it as it requires so much work. We also thought about accessing the PvP from main menu or from the game hub but it would require a build creating system and we also know that the PvP is not balanced depending of the spells you currently have, it's mainly targeted to get some fun when you do co-op runs!
Extras
Some noteworthy change mainly inspired by community suggestions!
Offline Telescope - We have made the Telescope working offline now, it will solve the problem that it was not working in some regions of the world and it will also be available on Console now.
4 Categories at Cetus Cavern - Cetus Cavern now has 4 categories instead of 3, the fourth one will always be the random one (Nebulous Choice)
Pavo Feathers - Feathers on Pavo's ruins will always be of a higher level after sacrificing health 3 times (globally)
Arsenal Update Preview
We have also started working on the next update : The Arsenal. In this update each Hero will have new weapons and associated passives. We will explain this better next time but for now you can see one of the new weapons of Kiran below -
Merch Suggestions event
We are also gathering your ideas about potential merch on our Discord Server, you can give your own ideas and vote for other suggestions you like, do not hesitate to join!
Backerkit Survey
We have received 57% of the Backerkit survey, please do not forget to fill it. More details in the previous update if you missed it. And you can access it anytime from this link.
Have a great time in the game and a fantastic week,
